"Virtually untreatable" tuberculosis

[unixronin]

Auntie Beeb reports that, in the continuing saga of antibiotic misuse and microbial antibiotic resistance, "virtually untreatable" tuberculosis has been encountered in the US, Western Europe, and Africa.

Multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), TB strains resistant to two or more of the first-line anti-TB drugs, are already a growing concern.  The WHO estimates there are around 425,000 cases a year, mostly in India' China and the former Soviet Union.  They require treatment with second-line drugs which are more expensive, more toxic, and take longer to work.  Extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) strains are resistant not only to all of the first-line TB drugs, but to three or more of the six classes of second-line TB drugs.  Recent studies have found that 4% of MDR-TB cases in the US, 15% in South Korea, and 19% in the former Soviet Union met the XDR-TB criteria.

The article also notes that HIV-positive patients appear to be at particular risk.  52 of 53 XDR-TB patients found in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa, died within 25 days; 44 of the 53 had been tested for HIV, and all 44 were positive.

Paul Sommerfeld of TB Alert said: "XDR TB is very serious - we are potentially getting close to a bacteria [sic] that we have no tools, no weapons against.

"What this means for the people in southern Africa, who are now becoming susceptible to this where it is appearing, is a likely death sentence.

"For the world as a whole it is potentially extremely worrying that this kind of resistance is appearing.  This is something that I am sure the WHO will be taking very seriously."